WILMINGTON — Claude Julien has instilled a certain attitude with his Bruins.

Play fearless hockey in the playoffs and see what happens.

That’s why he was happy to hear how Tuukka Rask responded when asked about the big load he will carry into the series against the high-powered Penguins in the Eastern Conference finals.

Rask said that he expects to carry a big load and always goes into a series thinking he is the best goalie. That attitude also matches what the experts are saying. If the Bruins are going to have a chance of upsetting the Penguins, Rask will need to play to his level and maybe above.

Rask is considered by all experts as the superior netminder in this series, far and above the likes of Tomas Vokoun and Marc-Andre Fleury.

“I think he answered it right because I’m one of those guys where you have to relish the challenges,” Julien said Tuesday as the Bruins returned to the ice as a team for the first time since eliminating the Rangers on Saturday evening. “You can’t fear them. Bring it on. And that’s what he’s telling you right now, ‘Bring it on. I’m ready for it.’ That’s what our whole team’s demeanor is going to be is like, ‘Hey, we know it’s a big challenge. Bring it on.’ We’re ready for it. We’ll give it everything we have and hopefully, that’ll be enough to win a series.

“I think there’s two teams here that know what’s at stake. They’re going to bring their best at us, and we’re hopefully going to do the same thing to them. And we know how we play and we know how they play and it’s going to be a matter of just seeing how it pans out.”

The Bruins took to the TD Garden ice for a 30-minute up-tempo, intense practice after coach Claude Julien and players admitted that their effort was there on Thursday night but not their execution.

Friday was an effort, even after a tough overtime loss, to pick up the intensity level for Saturday afternoon’s 5:30 start against the Rangers, with yet another chance to close out the series in Game 5.

“It was just a good flow, good practice,” David Krejci said. “Hard and short. We don’t know what’s going to happen [Saturday] morning but it’s kind of an odd time for the game, 5:30. We’re just taking it day-by-day and we felt that, and the coaches felt the same way, that we needed to go out there for a short, hard practice. And we did that. Now, we’re just going to focus on [Saturday].”

Krejci wasn’t overly critical of his teammates and their well-documented mistakes in Game 4 that caused them to blow a 2-0 lead and lose the game in overtime.

“It was an OK game,” he said. “There were chances on both sides but the game is behind us now. They won in OT. [Saturday] is a new game and we’re going to do everything we can to get over it.”

All Bruins were accounted for except defenseman Andrew Ference, out with a lower body injury. Dennis Seidenberg (lower body) and Wade Redden (unspecified) skated together as a D-pair Friday and have been skating all week with the team. There’s a sense that Seidenberg could return on Saturday in place of Dougie Hamilton or Matt Bartkowski. Seidenberg hasn’t played since injuring himself on the second shift of Game 7 against Toronto on May 13.

“I felt comfortable out there today,” Seidenberg said. “But again it’s a decision where I have to talk to them first. We’ll see. They’re going to ask me a couple of a questions and go from there.

Seidenberg said he is itching to get back on the ice.

“Really bad,” Seidenberg said of his desire to return. “No one likes watching hockey games, especially around this time of year, so hopefully I get back in there soon, and hopefully can help.”

Seidenberg watched from upstairs Thursday night as the Bruins failed to close out Game 4.

“We know we played a good game,” Seidenberg said. “A couple of hiccups there but for the most part, we put a lot of pucks on the nets, had quite a few chances, especially on the power play so we know we could’ve won it. We just have to stick in the moment and try to win the next one.

“Every game we want to finish with the win, especially being up 3-1, it would be nice to finish it off but again, we have to play a good game first because they have the momentum now.”

New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez gave us the “Butt Fumble” against the Patriots last Thanksgiving. Tuukka Raskgave us the “Butt Stumble” right across the Hudson River from MetLife Stadium Thurday night.

Say this much for Rask: He has a lot of patience with repetitive questions from reporters and he has a good sense of humor.

Both were on display Friday after practice at TD Garden as he was peppered with more questions about Thursday’s “Butt Stumble on Broadway” and the Bruins losing Game 4 in overtime just like they did three years ago when the collapse began in Philadelphia.

“I don’t even want to compare,” Rask said when asked whether the bizarre loss in overtime in Game 4 Thursday night reminded him of 2010. “It’s a totally different team. We beat Philly out the next year, 4-0. We won the Cup. Lots of things have happened. As we’ve said all along, we don’t like to look in the past or too much ahead. We like to live in the moment and focus on the task.”

And as for the blooper of all hockey bloopers this season?

“I think you either decide to cry about it or have a sense of humor about it and that’s it,” Rask said. “You just have to move on. You let in goals and at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what kind of goals you let in, it’s still a goal. Some days it sucks to be a goalie.”

Rask lost an edge and fell backwards in the second period Thursday night, allowing Carl Hagelin‘s weak backhander to slide past him and into the net to cut Boston’s 2-0 lead in half.

“Yeah, I saw it. I saw it many times in my head, too,” Rask said. “I mean, you can either cry about it or laugh about it and I decided it’s better to have a sense of humor and laugh about it. Tough break, those happen. But to be honest, I think throughout the years I’ve been pretty good in making those ‘Not-so Top 10 lists’ so there we are again.”

Enough of the funny business. As for the serious business of getting ready for Game 5 Saturday night, Rask said he liked what he saw at the 30-minute up-tempo practice Friday at TD Garden.

“Absolutely,” Rask said. “It’s been a few days since we had a full team practice on an off day and today we just want to make everybody’s minds are in the right place and we’re making crisp passes and executing the plays and keeping it short and sharp, and that’s what it was.”

Claude Julien has been happy with his power play unit in this series, that is when the Bruins actually get a power play.

He made that much perfectly clear on Friday after practice as his team prepares for another chance to wrap up the series against the Rangers in Game 5 at TD Garden Saturday evening.

The Bruins were 2-for-4 on the power play Thursday in the Game 4 loss to the Rangers, with one of the two misses actually resulting in a goal as Tyler Seguin scored his first goal this postseason as a penalty was expiring in the third period. The Bruins didn’t get a single power play in Game 3 and had only one in Game 2. Boston is 3-for-9 in this playoff series while the Rangers are now 1-for-14 on the man-advantage.

With Nathan Horton and Torey Krug scoring on the power play Thursday night, is Julien pleased that his power play is making the most of its chances?

“Well, yeah especially the lack of them that we’ve had in this series,” Julien said. “It was nice to see us score a couple of goals. It’s been tough. It’s a good thing we’re a good five on five team and that we’ve managed to win hockey games, but last night two for four, and certainly it could have been three for four I guess two seconds after the power play ended, so our power play did a good job of producing and whenever you can count on that it’s always a bonus.

Other notes from Friday’s practice:

The Bruins skated hard for 30 minutes in an up-tempo, early afternoon practice on the TD Garden ice. All players were present and accounted for except for Andrew Ference, who is still nursing a lower body injury that has kept him out since Game 5 in the first round. Dennis Seidenberg and Wade Redden were the fourth defensive pairs to skate in drills Friday. Julien kept his defensive pairings the same, with Zdeno Chara and Dougie Hamilton leading the way, followed by Johnny Boychuk and Matt Bartkowski and then Adam McQuaid and Torey Krug. There were no changes on the lines either as Tyler Seguin remains on the third line with Chris Kelly and Rich Peverley.

“I think it was one of those practices today where you wanted to get a good sweat, knowing it’s an early game tomorrow, or afternoon game,” Julien said of the odd 5:30 p.m. start time on Saturday afternoon. “And we just want to make sure we’re ready for tomorrow.”

NEW YORK — There were no Jekyll and Hyde comments from Claude Julien after his team blew a 2-0 lead in the second period and lost a potential series-clinching Game 4 to the Rangers in overtime, 4-3.

To the Bruins coach, Thursday’s loss wasn’t a matter of being outworked, just sloppiness, puck-watching and a lack of execution.

“There’s no panic here,” Julien assured everyone afterward. “Had we been outworked and not been there at all, I’d be talking differently here. But we didn’t get outworked. All it was, our team didn’t execute as well as we have been lately. We have to go home and play a better game. But our work ethic was there. The things we did extremely well weren’t that easy tonight.”

Julien was asked about the bizarre two goals scored by New York on mistakes by Tuukka Rask (falling down) and Zdeno Chara (getting picked behind the net) and how those goals erased the 2-0 lead and allowed the Broadway Blues back in the game.

“I don’t know if it was the momentum that shifted more than … I felt we didn’t get outworked but we didn’t play as well as we could’ve throughout the whole game, even after the first period we talked about it,” Julien said.

“But the other thing is when you give them two gift goals, eventually it’s going to hurt. So, that’s what happened. We have a 2-0 lead there and it’s looks good. But then [get] unlucky and it’s a goal and it’s gives them life again. But at the end of the day, it’s pretty simple, didn’t play well enough, not outworked. We competed as hard as they did but we didn’t execute as well as we can.”

Rask falling down, Chara getting stripped and too many men on the ice all were mistakes that added up to disaster for the Bruins on Thursday.

“I think Tuukka did the job he had to do and just Z got stripped,” Julien said. “Again, it’s a mistake, but as we often say, how many does he repair versus how many does he cost. At the end of the day, those two goals certainly hurt us.”

On the Rangers’ power-play goal, their first of the series and just third in 41 tries in the playoffs, the Bruins allowed Brian Boyle to get deep into the slot with no one covering him and score with 10 minutes left to force overtime.

“We’re 3-2 and the power-play goal [happens] and it’s a mistake on our part. We’re puck-watching. We felt we were puck-watching, allowing Boyle to get into the slot for an easy shot. We were a little sloppy. We weren’t as crisp as we have been in past games. Eventually, they came back and found a way to win this hockey game.”

Tuukka Rask lost an edge and then his balance and fell over at exactly the wrong time, allowing Carl Hagelin to score and cut Boston’s 2-0 lead in half with 11:21 left in the second period. Hagelin shook off Johnny Boychuk just enough to flip a backhander on net that Rask would’ve normally turned aside without any fanfare. But he fell backward.

“I took a step to the side,” Rask explained. “There was what I think was a skate mark or something. That’s what it felt like. I lost my balance and the rest is history.

“Happens maybe twice a year in practice. Focus, got to be more focused, I think. Just a tough mistake. Looks pretty bad on TV. Just sloppy, I think. It kind of freezes you, and you still have a second to decide whether you’re going to scramble with the paddle down or just try to wrap your way around. Just awful.”

Rask was burned again on another bizarre goal when Derek Stepan stripped the puck from captain Zdeno Chara while Rask was still settling into his crease. Stepan wrapped around a shot into a vacated net and the game was tied 2-2, early in the third period.

“Nothing,” Rask said of what he saw on that goal. “We tried to wheel it [out of the defensive zone]. A guy surprised us and I couldn’t do anything, didn’t see anything. We gave them a couple of gifts, obviously. That’s, at the end of the day, what costs us a lot of energy, a couple of leads and the game.

“It’s a game of mistakes. Every team makes mistakes, every player makes mistakes and you just have to learn from them and move forward. I don’t think a couple of mistakes are going to make us a bad hockey team. It’s just what happens sometimes and you just have to shake it off and move on.”

The Bruins and Rangers would exchange goals, including the Bruins getting burned yet again for too many men on the ice in a playoff game. The game went to overtime before Chris Kreider finished a perfect pass from Rick Nash by netting the game-winner at 7:03 of extra time.

“I thought that was the best goal of the night for them,” Rask said. “That was a really good goal. A really good tip. I could’ve had it but I couldn’t get there. Can’t blame myself too much.”

NEW YORK — The Bruins will try to advance to the Eastern Conference finals with a single goal in overtime after being tied, 3-3, after 60 minutes.

Here are notes heading into overtime:

OVERTIME:
‘¢ The Bruins are playing their 121st lifetime playoff overtime game tonight and they enter this extra session with a 52-65-3 record in playoff overtime … It is their 63rd on the road and that record currently stands at 23-38-2 … They are 3-0 in overtime in this post-season.
‘¢ The Rangers are playing their 78th lifetime playoff overtime game tonight and they enter this extra session with a 33-44 record in playoff overtime … It is their 32nd on home ice and that record now stands at 14-18 … They are 2-11 in their last 13 playoff overtime contests, including an 0-3 mark in this post-season.
‘¢ The Bruins are playing their seventh lifetime playoff overtime games vs. the Rangers with a 5-1 record in the previous five con- tests … The Bruins won the first game of this series in overtime when Brad Marchand scored at 15:40 of the extra session for the 3-2 win.

WHO’S HOT:
‘¢ Nathan Horton has a goal and an assist tonight, giving him 2-3=5 totals in four of his last five games and points in eight of his last 11 games with 5-6=11 totals … It is his third multiple-point game of this post-season and the eighth of his playoff career.
‘¢ Tyler Seguin had a goal and an assist tonight, giving him 1-2=3 totals in two of his last five games … It is his first multple-point game of this post-season and the fourth of his playoff career.
‘¢ Torey Krug has a goal tonight, giving him 3-1=4 totals in three of his last four games played.
‘¢ David Krejci has an assist tonight, giving him six assists in four of his last five games and extending his league-leading 5-12=17
totals in nine of his last 11 games.
‘¢ Brad Marchand has an assist tonight, giving him 2-4=6 totals in four of his last five games with 2-6=8 totals in six of his last ten
games.
‘¢ Dougie Hamilton has an assist tonight, giving him single assists each in three of his last four games.
‘¢ New York’s Derek Stepan has a goal and an assist tonight, giving him 2-1=3 totals in two of his last four games
‘¢ New York’s Derick Brassard has two assists tonight, giving him 2-10=12 totals in seven of his last nine games … It is his fourth
multiple-point game of this post-season.Read the rest of this entry »